


Ashes

by nwhepcat



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Forced Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22213639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: A year after his torture at her hands, a vastly different Faith turns up on Wesley's doorstep, begging for help.  Post S1 AtS/BtVS AU darkfic.Seriously dark. I'd-turn-back-if-I-were-you dark. I hadn't read this in years, and I think it's the darkest thing I've ever written.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: character death, madness, coerced surrogate motherhood

The cabbie thinks it's a damn shame nobody met this girl at the airport. It's clear she's not got enough wattage upstairs to light the inside of a refrigerator. No luggage -- or at least that's what she claims, but she doesn't look like she'd _know_ if she had any or not.

She seems to have someplace to go, at least. The girl hands him a torn envelope -- blue airmail onionskin. Don't see those much anymore, now that everyone emails. The return address, the only part that's still intact, is an L.A. address.

He has a bad feeling he's about to be stiffed, but he thinks about the kind of ride she might get if he refuses the fare. He thinks of his daughter, how he'd want things to go if it was her in this spot.

This girl's about the same age. Pretty, if there was anything behind the eyes. She's got dark hair, dark eyes. She seems kind of agitated, so he puts on some quiet music, talks to her about his daughter, but he gets little response.

When he pulls up in front of the place on the envelope, he stops the meter and reads the fare, though he expects her to bolt instead of pay. But she digs through her pockets and starts counting out bills. "I don't have forty of these." She thrusts what she has over the seat and fumbles with the door.

"Hey hey hey, wait. This is too much. Give me a second, I'll give you your change." The size and look of the bills are off, but he sees they're English money. At least he knows it's worth something. "You don't need forty of these, you look at the numbers on the front, see? I don't know what the exchange rate is, Miss, so I'll take forty and another ten to cover anything I might lose in fees. Seem fair?"

She wouldn't have the faintest idea what's fair or not, but he gets her to take back the rest of her money.

"Don't carry that around like that. Put it in your pocket." He does not like this. "Here. I'll walk you to the door." This is going to eat up his profits in lost time -- that and having to find a place to exchange the pound notes -- but he can't leave her standing out on the sidewalk this way.

He walks with her to the main entrance of the place. Everybody they pass looks shady to him, like they'd pounce on her the second she was unprotected. She puts her hands to the glass door like the whole concept puzzles her. He lets her into the main lobby, then looks at the scrap of envelope again. "Up the stairs. What's your name?" He can barely hear her answer. "Fay? That's pretty. You don't hear that name as much anymore. This looks like the place."

The lettering on the frosted glass door is amateurish, uneven, like some letters have been squeezed in after the fact. _Los **ANGEL** es **INVESTIGATIONS**._ He realizes the name _has_ been changed. He remembers seeing flyers around town, some slogan about helping people who are helpless, hopeless, something.

This girl is both.

The name below that, W. Wyndam-Pryce, matches the one on the envelope. He tries the door, but it's locked, and the lights inside are off. He knocks, just in case, but there's no response.

Now what? "Do you have anyplace else to go?"

"I need Wes."

"Yeah, but I don't think he's here."

"I need Wes." Fay settles herself on the floor in front of the door. There's a little alcove here, so she might be okay till the guy comes back.

He's got to get back to the cab, or he's going to be out of pocket, and maybe lose his place in the fleet. He tucks the scrap into his pocket. "I'll give a call to this guy when I'm off duty, make sure you've found each other, okay?"

Fay pulls her legs up toward her body the best she can, hugging her knees.

"Well," he says. "Good luck to you, Fay." Though she's had little enough up to this point.

He spends the rest of his shift worrying about her.

* * *

Wesley watches a tray full of exquisite little sculptures of food pass by, as a hand lightly brush along his hip. Glynnis, who out-dazzles the diamonds she's wearing, slips around from behind him to press a glass into his hand and trail her fingers up to the holster under his tuxedo jacket.

"I feel so much better knowing you're here," she says.

"I shouldn't drink tonight." Which Wesley has said twice before, and both times Glynnis has ignored him. Both times he's shrugged and followed her lead.

He's on duty, but he's not precisely sure what that means.

On its face, this is a personal protection job, which is the sort of thing he's been doing these days, along with the occasional surveillance on cheating spouses and insurance scam artists. Nothing of a supernatural nature has come his way for a year, and he'd lost the heart to seek it out.

As cases go, Wesley finds this one more agreeable than slouching in a car wielding a camera with telephoto lens. The one unpleasantness is the sheer bloody awfulness of the art at this gallery opening and the fact that Glynnis, his client, must engage with it and discuss it in her capacity as the gallery's owner. He suspects she hates it as much as Wesley does. Throughout the evening she amuses herself by stating some outlandish opinion on a random work, attributing it to Wesley, and watching him struggle to defend or expand upon it at a moment's notice. He rises to each challenge, and Glynnis rewards him with fleeting, electric touches at his waist, his hip, once on his arse.

Throughout the evening checks are handed over and red dots appear beside the titles of artworks. The more execrable the piece, the more quickly it seems to sell. The most foul one in the gallery sells immediately after one of Wesley's impromptu soliloquies on shock as a commodity. Glynnis pulls him into the ladies' room after this triumph and seizes his hand, drawing it up under her little black dress to invade her silky heat.

Her breathy little cries rise in pitch, but before they reach a crecendo there's a knock at the door, and her assistant calls for her to attend another devotee with a great deal more cash than taste. Glynnis hisses a curse, pulling away. "When they're all gone," she says, and leaves him behind to wipe at his hand with a paper towel.

The pretense that there's any threat to protect her from has completely fallen away, but Wesley's only response to this confirmation of what he'd suspected is to snatch another glass of wine off a passing tray.

In a career that's consisted of nothing but bizarre turns, this is the strangest yet. The last three jobs he has fallen into have consisted of dubious personal protection for wealthy women whose beds he has later shared. Though each has come to him seemingly out of the blue, there are enough similarities in their circumstances and social circles, as well as their stories, to make him suspect his name and ... qualifications ... have been passed around at some spa or tennis club.

How disgusted would his father be if he knew where Wesley is and that he'll willingly play the fantasy object for his employer if he can't be her protector?

It doesn't matter. If his father had nothing but contempt for Wesley's attempts to please him, Wesley has nothing to lose now. When the last guest is gone and Glynnis leaves her staff to attend to the cleanup, he yields to her wish to go to his office.

The cab ride is nearly enough to get them arrested, and they continue with their frenzied groping and kissing in the building lobby.

Wesley tells her he has an apartment below the office, but she tells him she wants him to take her right on top of his desk. He leads her up the stairs and rounds the corner to find a figure huddled at his door, apparently asleep.

"Fucking junkies," Glynnis says, but this seems to excite her rather than dissuade her. Though Wesley makes a good appearance in evening clothes and can talk convincingly about what passes for art, she's hired him for that faint tang of the seedy that clings to any private investigator.

"Stay here," Wesley says, and approaches the presumed junkie. Long-haired, small-boned, probably female, although possibly not. She or he is clothed in denim pants, sloppy blue shirt and running shoes, all somewhat grubby but not crusted. Not entirely homeless, then.

"Hey." Wesley crouches beside the sleeper, reaches for a shoulder and shakes it. "You'll have to find somewhere else to sleep."

The junkie shifts, hair parting to reveal part of a cheekbone, a long-lashed eye beginning to flutter open.

"Get up and run along," he says. "You can't stay here."

"Wes," she says, and pushes herself up on an elbow.

Panic arcs through Wesley, sending him scrabbling backward, landing ungracefully on his arse, fumbling for his gun. "Glynnis, _go_."

"It's just a junkie."

"I know her. She's dangerous." The scars from their last meeting have not yet faded from his chest. They itch sometimes, and at others they add a little rough glamour to the fantasy object he becomes for women like Glynnis.

"Get rid of her."

The notion shocks him, even though the gun is already in his hand. "I can't do that." Faith hasn't yet made a move toward him.

"I meant tell her to get lost." Annoyance and disgust are creeping into her voice, signaling that the evening's fantasy is in danger of evaporating.

"Wes, I got away." There's something different, something wrong. Her face is devoid of her habitual smirk and its native intelligence.

"What makes you think I won't send you back?" he asks coldly.

She begins to cry, an ugly, naked sound that fills him with horror. This can't be Faith, must be some ill-formed doppelganger. "No. You have to do something." She shifts position gracelessly and he sees something that makes his jaw drop. "There's something in here."

Indeed there is. Faith is hugely pregnant.

* * *

Wesley holsters his gun and hastily unlocks the office door, ushering Faith inside and settling her in the client's chair. "Stay right there until I get back," he tells her. "I'll only be a minute."

To be on the safe side, he locks her inside as he accompanies Glynnis to the street to hail a taxi.

Glynnis is icily angry, despite his apologies and assurances that she will have his full attention another time. (Despite the fact that the job was, in fact, supposed to be providing her with protection for the opening, which he has accomplished.) He suspects his career as gigolo with gun may be coming to a rapid close.

As he opens the cab door open for Glynnis, he wrestles with a strong temptation to get in beside her and leave Faith to fend for herself. What can he possibly owe her, beyond the same grief that she caused for him?

But god knows what it is she's carrying in her womb, and whether the world will need saving from it. He has enough of the watcher left in him to know he must return to Faith's side and see what can be done.

Wesley slips the driver a twenty, then bends to say goodnight to Glynnis. "I'll call you in the morning."

She hits the button to close her window, nearly taking his fingertips off. He watches the taxi until its taillights vanish into the distance, as if he's watching the love of his life leave for another country instead of the early departure of a one night stand. At last he sighs and goes inside, climbing the stairs to the office.

Faith sits where he'd left her, perched on the edge of her chair, hands clenched on its arms. She looks like a frightened child, like Wesley must have looked when awaiting a reprimand from his father.

"Faith," he says, because he can think of nothing else to say.

"I've been here," she blurts. Everything she's said has the same quality. Toneless, too loud, tumbled straight from her brain out her mouth.

"Yes."

"Angel."

God. "Angel's gone," he says sharply.

She cowers back in the chair. "They stabbed him with a stick. Then they took me."

"I know." He'd seen from the entrance of the alley. Too late to stop them from destroying Angel. Not too late to intervene in her abduction, but he'd stepped into the shadows and watched it happen. After they'd jabbed a needle into her and bundled her away, he'd fallen to his knees in the alley, amid the ashes that were all that remained of his life. Wesley forces himself to look at her. "Where have you been all this time?"

"I was there. With them."

"With the people who took you?"

"Not those ones." She clutches her head, as if sorting through this is too much. She looks on the verge of weeping again. "Do you have pretty rocks?"

"What?"

"I like looking. They sparkle. It makes me feel better."

"Rocks? Do you mean crystals?"

Faith looks cornered, as if this question is too difficult for her.

"Where have you seen these rocks? The people who held you, did they have them?"

"I could look at them sometimes."

Wesley has been taught in the use of these crystals -- as was Giles, whose use of them led to his sacking by the Council and Wesley's own promotion. He would have used them unquestioningly at the time, believing whole-heartedly in the Council's methods. Are they, he wonders, the key to her current condition?

"I'm sorry. I don't have any."

She begins to cry again, with the same horrid, tone-deaf quality of her speech.

"Do stop that!" he snaps.

Cowed, she stops making the sounds, biting her lips and whimpering instead.

He injects some false patience into his voice. "How did you get here?"

"I hid. It was cold and I got sick." She touches her body above the massive bulge where the baby is, then lets her hand fall away.

Every statement is a puzzle, every piece of information boiled down to the most concrete elements that he must piece together. "Sick to your stomach, you mean?" He wonders if she could possibly have been a stowaway. It seems impossible that she could pull off such an escape when she looks like she'd barely be able to feed herself. Something occurs to him. "Are you hungry?"

The question seems to require more self-awareness than Faith can muster. She looks at him in mute confusion.

"There's food downstairs. I'll make something for you."

Nodding, she struggles out of her chair and follows him to the lift. When it moves she yelps softly and clings to him. Wesley struggles to suppress his deep revulsion at her touch, removing himself from her clutches gently but quickly. He gestures ahead of him. "Through there. In the kitchen."

She sits awkwardly, her arms hanging straight down at her sides. Wesley realizes she does not have that unconscious habit of all pregnant women he's ever seen, the hand on the belly. How long has she had to get used to her condition? Could she have encountered a demon such as the one that impregnated Cordelia?  
Wesley pours a small glass of milk for her and sets the tea kettle on the gas ring. "How long have you been pregnant?" Nothing but a blank look. He gestures toward her belly. "How long has this been inside you?"

"Long time. They wouldn't get it out."

"Do you remember --" How can he ask this? "Did someone lie down with you? Or did someone hurt you?"

"No. I think a doctor put it there. I don't like him as much as the first doctor. That one let me see the rocks a lot. He made it all quiet inside."

"And it's still quiet now?"

"Mostly. Except I'm scared about this." She points at her belly, then lets her hand fall away again, hanging limp beside her chair. "It keeps getting bigger."

What in god's name has the Council done? Is it human or not? No matter what the answer, what they've done is unconscionable.

"I'll make you some toast and jam. Then we'll see someone who can take a look inside for us." Not the poor sod who'd been treated to the sight of Cordelia's seven demon spawn, of course.

Once he has the answer, what will he do then?

* * *

Faith attacks the toast with such vigor that Wesley realizes how long she must have gone without food. "Why don't I make you a proper breakfast?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, but starts in cooking eggs and more toast. As he shoves the scrambled eggs around the skillet, he can't help but think of the breakfast Angel had made after they'd saved Cordelia from the empath demon. That first inkling of belonging he'd felt when Angel had invited him to join him and Cordelia for eggs.

Just a few months later Angel was dust. Not long after that, Cordelia went her own way. As he cooks Faith's breakfast, he considers asking Cordelia for help. Perhaps Faith would feel more comfortable with a doctor's examination if another woman were there. And surely Cordy wouldn't find it so distressing to be in close proximity -- after all, Faith had only clipped her on the jaw, not settled in for a long evening of torture.

He sets the plate in front of Faith, who switches from the toast to the eggs without missing a beat. As she tears into the food, Wesley finds Cordelia's number and dials.

"Absolutely not," comes her answer to Wesley's request. "I'm not coming anywhere near that bitch."

"She's ... different now."

"Oh, has she seen the error of her evil ways?"

No, she'd just been confronted with an institutional evil she could not withstand. "Not precisely. She's been ... made safe. She's very pregnant, Cordelia, and she's quite scared."

"Scared? Our little sociopath?"

Turning his back toward Faith, he lowers his voice. "She's been diminished in some way. She's like a child."

"That's just sweet, Wes, but she's your problem. I haven't had a whole lot of sympathy for her since she killed Angel."

"She did not kill him. The Council's goons did."

"Whatever. Same difference. It was her fault."

"I can't believe you'd turn your back on me this way."

"Whoa, Wesley. It's you who lost sight of the mission, bro. Now you want to get your head back in the game, and you're giving me crap because I won't jump to help?"

 _Bro._ No doubt she's picked that up from the street kid one of her visions led her to. She and the improbably named Gunn and that Harris boy from Sunnydale have been bankrolled by, of all people, David Nabbit, and are taking over the helping the helpless franchise.

While Wesley's been busy helping the bored, rich women whose husbands are out of town.

It's worth an attempt. "Cordelia, if you truly want to help the helpless, you won't get a better opportunity."

"And why are _you_ helping her anyway? Did you decide to add some fresh scars to your collection?"

"What's been done to her, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy," he says. "And it may well be that she _is_ my worst enemy."

"This is going to turn around and bite you on the ass."

This notion has not failed to occur to him. "Then this would be a perfect case for you."

"Right," she says. "I'll give you a call when I get a vision. Or if I turn into Mother Teresa. But right now, we've already got a case." The line goes dead.

Wesley turns to face the wreck of a girl sitting at his table, arms hanging limp at her sides. "It will be a while before the doctor can take a look at you. Would you like to sleep for a while?"

"Do you have some of the rocks down here?"

"No, Faith. I'm afraid I don't."

"I can't sleep without looking at the rocks."

"Well, you can lie down anyway. It'll help if you rest."

Unable to lever herself out of the armless chair, Faith reaches a hand to him for his help. He pushes down his revulsion and helps her to the bed. She curls on her side, her dark eyes staring at him.

_Now what?_

* * *

Wesley isn't sure what he should do with the few hours left before he can take her to a clinic. Refresh himself on which specific demons use human hosts? If the Council has been experimenting with her, it might not even be a demon that habitually does so. Research pregnancy, labor and delivery? If the ultrasound shows a human fetus, he wants nothing more than to register her with the clinic for her delivery, wish her luck and walk away. If it's not --

Can he do what is necessary? He considers the possibility of going beyond what is necessary, and killing Faith before her labor begins. It's quite possible she won't survive whatever it is she's about to deliver anyway. And with what the Council has done to her apart from the pregnancy, wouldn't it be a mercy?

A wave of self-disgust rolls through him. If she were this impaired through an accident, or had been so from birth, the notion that someone might think her not fit to live would horrify him as much as the idea that someone has made her this way on purpose.

Not "someone." The Council.

He wishes he could phone his father and demand to know what they've done. But to do so would undermine her escape. They'd undoubtedly return to retrieve her, and he suspects their brutality would be increased by their anger at having been outwitted by her in the first place.

Who else can he call on? Rupert Giles, perhaps? Would he deign to help Wesley when he hadn't even notified him when Faith had awakened last year?

He's a watcher, of course he'll help. His training would not allow anything less.

So they always say, but hadn't Wesley himself abdicated his heritage and training after Angel's staking, preferring to drink himself half to death for a period of months?

No. Rupert Giles, for all his faults by the Council's lights, would never abandon his destiny.

Wesley hurries upstairs to the office and searches until he finds Giles's phone number. When he answers, he sounds altogether too awake for the time of night.

"Ah. Mr. Giles. This is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I'm sorry to call at such an hour, but I have a bit of a situation."

Giles cuts him off. "I'm sorry, but I'm in the midst of coping with a hellgod. We're on our way to the desert. Perhaps the Council can give you some advice."

And again, Wesley finds himself listening to a dead phone line.

* * *

Wesley undertakes an internet search for the basics on labor and childbirth (non-demonic), then switches to what volumes he has on the demon-human hybrid births. He scrawls notes on things he might need. He can see it now: boiling water and a double-headed axe. He begins gathering weapons for a variety of contingencies. How to get them downstairs without terrifying Faith is something he'll have to consider.

_She should be terrified. If what's in her womb doesn't kill her, the man she's come to for help is likely to._

If that's what it takes to save the world ...

Feeling no more prepared than when he'd begun his research, Wesley retreats downstairs. The apartment is dead silent except for noises from the street, so he assumes Faith has managed to fall asleep despite her fears that she couldn't without a crystal. He decides to leave her in peace and stretches out on the moth-eaten sofa in the living room. Despite his own that certainty he'll never fall asleep, he succumbs within moments.

Morning finds him disoriented, surprised to find himself in his tuxedo trousers and shirt, lying on his sofa. His head aches, but it's not the wicked hangover he was expecting. As he sits up, however, he remembers more of the night's events, and the unwanted guest still no doubt occupying his bed, once Angel's.

He goes to check on Faith, and finds her lying in the same position he'd left her in, her eyes fixing on him the moment he appears in the door.

"Ah, you're awake."

"You were gone a long time."

Wesley frowns. "You've been awake this whole time?"

"It was a long time. I can't sleep without the rock."

She has been lying here the entire time, without so much as moving?

"Faith, we're going to see a doctor now. He'll rub your belly with a special camera, and we'll be able to see inside, see what's growing there."

"I don't like that doctor. I want the other doctor."

"This is a new doctor, Faith. You'll like him just fine, I promise."

"Does he have pretty rocks?"

He's already started making reckless promises; what's one more? "Yes. We'll make sure he has some."

Faith struggles to sit up, maneuvering with difficulty. She reaches her hand to Wesley, who pretends not to notice, letting her founder until at last she manages to reach the edge of the bed and swing her feet down. She clutches at him and hauls herself to her feet, unmindful of his urge to recoil.

"Oh," she says in dismay.

"What is it?"

"There's pee. It came out of me, but I didn't pee. It just came out."

Sure enough, there's fluid dripping onto the oriental rug, from a growing stain on her jeans.

"I didn't mean to."

 _Jesus wept._ "It's all right. It's not urine. Your water has broken."

There's no sign of comprehension on her face.

"It means the baby's about to arrive. Have you had pains?"

"Arrive?"

"It's on its way."

"From where?"

"From here, Faith. From inside you." His hand hovers over her belly, but Wesley can't bring himself to touch it.

She shakes her head. "Not a baby. It wasn't any baby when they put it in."

"It would have been very small then. You didn't say. Have you had any pains?" Wesley indicates his own midsection. "Perhaps a feeling of your muscles clenching?" He grips the air with his hands to demonstrate.

She looks at him in utter confusion, which he takes for a "no."

"You'll need to begin labor soon," he says stupidly, as if she's just waiting for orders or permission. "Now that your water's broken." She needs clothes that aren't wet, too, but it's certain nothing he has will fit. "Let's go in the living room. You can sit there."

"Is the doctor coming? With that baby?"

"We have to change our plans. We won't be seeing the doctor. The baby's already on its way."

"But you said he has the rocks." She begins resisting his efforts to walk her to the other room.

"We can't expose others to the birth when we don't know what's coming. It's too dangerous."

"I need the rocks." She flails out at him. Her voice takes on more expressiveness than it's had, but what she's expressing is a rising hysteria. "I've been good, I've been very very brave. But there are things crawling in there."

"In here?" He shoves away his distaste and places his hand on her belly, which is tight as a drum, as it should be at this stage.

"No." She bats away his hand. "In my head. It's going to get loud."

"I have an idea. I'll make a call and get someone to bring us some crystals." Wesley leads her to a chair, settles her in. "You wait while I make the call. Would you like to watch some television?" Will it calm her or agitate her? He turns it on at low volume and turns the channel to a children's program with cartoons, and then he dials Cordelia's number again. "Cordy, please. I need your help. You don't have to see Faith at all, just bring some things to me here. She's gone into labor."

As he waits for his answer, a wail rises up from the other room.

* * *

The moment Wesley finishes the call, he hurries downstairs to Faith. She has managed to rise from the chair, but her struggle is evident in the disarrangement of the lamp on the end table, and a cushion that lies on the floor.

She stands in the center of the room, a tense hand splayed on her belly as she watches him emerge from the elevator. "It _hurts_."

"I know, Faith," he says gently. "But what you're feeling is normal. Your body is preparing to push the baby out."

"How many more?"

Wesley shakes his head. "How many--?"

Faith grits her teeth and clenches her hand, miming another labor pain. "How many?"

"It's hard to say. This is your first delivery, so it's likely to take many hours."

"No." In her panic, she looks likely to weep again. "I want it out now."

"Faith, please listen." Wesley touches her face, directs her chin so she's looking at him, then lets his hand fall away. "The thing we all fear about pain is the belief that something's terribly wrong. This is one time that fear is unnecessary. It's a normal part of childbirth. Each pain means your body is doing its job properly." He hopes he's telling the truth, that whatever she's delivering won't destroy her. "Do you understand?"

She makes no reply, but her utter misery indicates she realizes the enormity of what he's asking her to accept.

The words she used about herself come back to him, and he assumes they're ones she heard many times during her captivity. "You've been very, very brave, Faith. I know you have the strength to see this through."

She blinks back tears. "I don't know."

"You're one of the strongest girls I've ever known."

Shaking her head, she says, "They made it go away. So I can't hurt people." Again, this sounds like a parroting of things she's been told by her captors. "They fixed things in my head, too, but now it's changing again. It was quiet but now it's all scared in there."

"Of course," he says gently. "This is very new for you. But there's nothing to be scared of. I'm here with you and I'll help you have this baby." Are his lies apparent in the tone of his voice? "Someone's bringing pretty rocks for you to look at. They'll help you feel calm while you're in labor."

"Where's that? You're taking me someplace?"

"No, we'll stay right here. Would it make you feel better to walk about the room a while, or would you rather sit down? I can read to you for a while." The relief of the pressure to talk her through this would be enormous if he could just let someone else's words flow through him. Does he own anything remotely suitable? Perhaps there's a magazine upstairs, or one of the books Cordelia left littered around when she was done with them. Romance stories of god-awful stupidity, which Cordy freely admitted. She called them candy for the brain. "I always liked being read to when I was sick. It helps you think about something outside yourself."

"Okay." It's the response of someone who's used to being told what to do rather than an agreement of free will, but since it removes some of the burden of comforting her, he takes it at face value. "I think I can find something upstairs, if you can wait here by yourself for a little while."

She looks doubtful and anxious, so before she can reply, Wesley says, "You're a very brave girl. You'll be all right by yourself for just a few minutes, won't you?"

Fearful as she is, she's eager to please. Tears glimmer in her eyes, but she says, "Okay."

"I'll just be a few moments."

While he's upstairs rummaging, a knock sounds at the door. He hadn't expected Cordelia so soon, but her arrival sends relief gusting through him. He wrenches the door open. "Cordy, I --"

But it's not her. It's the boy she used to date. Harris. Zach. Zane. No, it's Xander.

* * *

Xander hoists two fistfuls of shopping bags. "I brought the stuff you wanted. And Cordy included some other things."

"I thought you'd be longer." Wesley thought he'd be Cordelia.

"Cordelia Chase power shopping. She called ahead to the stores, then called me on my cell and told me where to go next." He lifts one of the bags. "Crystals." Then he raises the other fist with two shopping bags. "Comfortable clothes, and Cordy threw in a little kit of things for Faith. Lip balm, lemon drops, stuff like that."

Wesley takes the bags. "That was kind of her."

"Oh, I think she's left the receipts in there. She's of the opinion that this is your case, Wes."

"Yes, she did say she had no intention of seeing Faith. I told her that wouldn't be required. I'd have thought she'd come in person."

"It's not so much Faith she's trying to avoid. It's more about you."

Wesley blinks. "Me? What reason would she have for avoiding me?"

"Have you looked at yourself lately? Oh, wait, this is Angel's old place. I guess it's not exactly brimming with opportunities. You're like that old country song, 'I Never Go Around Mirrors.'"

"Yes, thank you," Wesley says curtly, and attempts to close the door on Xander.

Xander thrusts a foot in the door. "You're welcome. But I haven't said everything I came to say. I'm here to help with Faith. You need a hand getting her to the hospital?"

"I'm not taking her to a hospital."

"What?"

"I have no way of knowing what the Council has done to her, or exactly what it is she's carrying. I can't risk potentially unleashing a demon in a maternity ward. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd best go tend to her."

"You can't deliver a baby -- demon or not -- on your own. Let me help." Xander's hand joins his foot in the doorway.

Wesley allows him to step inside, but blocks his way farther into the office. "I do appreciate the thought, but I don't think you'll want to see her. She's been deeply damaged. I'm not entirely certain how it was accomplished, but they have quite effectively dismantled her intellect and her personality. She's like a slow child. It's ... difficult to be around her."

Xander stops trying to sidestep him and turns to regard him. "Then it sounds like she needs people who care."

"And why would you? I remember that she nearly killed you."

"Yeah? And I heard she tortured you. Why are you playing midwife?"

"Because she came to me. Because I was her watcher. Because a watcher can't walk away from that calling, even when told he's no longer employed."

"Funny, that's not how Cordy tells it."

"Well. It took me a while to realize, but it is the truth."

"Me, I guess I have a soft spot for lost souls. Where is she?" He glances around the office, maneuvering his way around Wesley.

"I'm warning you, it's not pretty."

"Then that makes three of us." Xander gestures toward the bags he delivered. "So does she need this stuff or not?"

After another moment's hesitation, Wesley nods. "She's downstairs, in the flat." He leads the way to the elevator. "Take these." He hands the deliveries back, then takes up an armload of weapons.

"You're shitting me," Xander says.

"I assure you, I am not. Xander, the Council inseminated her. Faith is in no shape to know what exactly they implanted in her. If it's dangerous -- if it's not human -- we may have only once chance to destroy it before it gets loose." Wesley punches the button for the lower level and the doors close.

"Why would the Council do that?"

"There's much that they don't share with their foot soldiers. I'm afraid I was never in their confidence."

"Lollypops and broadswords. Fuckin' nice there, Wes."

"Depending on what's in her womb, it could be a kindness."

Xander makes a noise of disgust and looks away as the lift rattles downward. With a lurch, it sets them at their destination, and the doors jerk open.

She stands right where Wesley had left her, gnawing at her lip, which has cracked and begun bleeding.

"Hey, Faith," Xander says softly. "Remember me? Xander."

She takes a step back.

"Hey, it's okay. I brought some things for you, and thought I'd stay and help with the baby. If that's okay with you."

Overwhelmed at being presented with a choice, she looks helplessly toward Wesley.

Some part of him wants to say the words that will make her want to send him away. He's not certain if it's the part that wants punishment or redemption, but the urge to have her depend solely on him is strong. But Xander's right. Trying to deliver this baby on his own while maintaining readiness to deal with whatever peril could result -- he's not certain he'd have been up to the task even in his better days.

"Xander's a friend," Wesley says at last. "He brought the pretty rocks."

She draws in a sharp breath, turning her attention back to Xander. "Can I see them? I've been so brave. Tell him I've been good, Wes."

Horror dawns on Xander's face, though he's clearly struggling to hide it.

"I told you," Wesley says quietly, letting the words sink in for a moment. "I told you how good she's been."

" _Please._ " Faith starts to cry, that horrid toneless bleating that makes Wesley's skin crawl.

"Of course you've been good," Xander finally manages to say. "Of course." He cannot master his voice or his face, and Wesley remembers just how young he is, just two years out of high school. "Here." He holds out the shopping bag from the crystals shop, but Wesley relieves him of it before she can take it.

"I've been trained in their use," he tells Xander. He hopes he remembers what he learned. It seems like three lifetimes ago. "Now Faith, let's get you settled in a comfortable chair so you can look to your heart's content. Do you remember which is your favorite color?"

"I like the purple."

"A very good choice." Wesley sets a chair in front of the one where she sits and draws the amethyst from the bag. "Now then. Let's begin."

* * *

"I think it's best if you retreat to another room," Wesley tells Xander. "The crystals can have a powerful effect on someone who looks at them closely."

Xander shifts from where he is, but doesn't leave the room. He settles in the doorway, leaning against the frame, eyes on Faith instead of Wesley.

Pushing back irritation, Wesley proceeds, guiding her through a meditation until she relaxes into her chair, drowsing, although not sleeping.

"That should give her a little peace," Wesley says.

"What the fuck have they done to her?" Xander asks, his voice quiet but full of rage.

"I don't know," he responds. "It seems as though she's been lobotomized, but if it's through surgery or some kind of spell, I have no idea. I don't believe she's been drugged, or she'd be coming out of it by now. I don't know how long it took her to travel here."

"How the hell did she get here?"

"I don't know. From what she said, I'd suspect she was a stowaway, but it seems a rather ambitious undertaking for someone in her state."

"Think she could have had help?"

Wesley pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. Anything is possible, I suppose."

"There's not a helluva lot you do know, is there?"

"I freely admit that."

"What they did, it's beyond brutal."

"Yes."

"These are the people you come from."

"They are the people who cast me out," he says.

"So how do we fix it?"

Wesley rises and brushes past Xander in the doorway, turning a cool gaze on him as he passes. "We may not need to fix it." He finds a bottle in a kitchen cabinet and pours himself half a tumbler full.

"What are you saying?" Xander hisses. "If we're lucky we'll have to kill her? I didn't think much of you back when I first knew you, Wes, and you haven't exactly improved with time. Ripened, maybe."

The justice of Xander's low opinion of him sparks from shame into anger in the space of a heartbeat. "Do you honestly believe now is the moment to restore Faith's full awareness of herself? So she can know how she's been violated, how they've reduced her to a shambling wreckage of the person she was, physically and mentally? When she asked for the crystals, she said they made it quiet inside her head -- that's not much, but it's all she has. What happens next may kill her. Even if we did have time to devote our resources to restoring her mind, wouldn't it be inexpressibly cruel to do it just so she can be torn to shreds?"

"You're saying if she's not smart, she'll hardly feel a thing? Jesus, Wes, you're a real piece of work." He pushes past Wesley and returns to the living room, where Faith still sprawls in her chair, inert and placid. He draws up the chair Wesley had abandoned and sits, covering Faith's hand with his. Too stupid to know he should leave her be, now that she's quieted. "Hey, Faith. How are you feeling?"

"I was scared, but it's better."

"I'm glad."

"There's something inside here."

"I can see that." Xander strokes his thumb over her hand.

"It moves around a lot. Sometimes it's hard to sleep."

"I guess it would be. I get a twitch in my eye, sometimes, and it doesn't let me sleep."

"They like me to sleep as much as I can. They mostly leave me all alone so I can get my rest."

"Who's that?" The boy's voice sounds choked.

"The people where I was. They all talk like Wes."

"Would you like to try sleeping now? When the baby starts coming, you might not be able to."

"This is okay. It's quieter now. Wes said the baby's gonna hurt me. When it comes out."

Xander's head comes up and he glares at Wesley, eyes glittering with anger and tears.

Wesley has taken up Xander's previous spot, leaning in the doorway. "I was explaining labor to her. That the pain was nothing to be frightened of, just the body's way of helping the baby come out."

Xander's expression doesn't soften, not until he returns his gaze to Faith. "Don't worry. I'll be here the whole time."

Suddenly Faith tenses and clutches her belly. "Oh no. Oh no. Here comes another one."

* * *

Once the pain has eased its grip on Faith, Xander looks at Wesley. "Shouldn't we be timing these?"

"Not at this stage. This is her first delivery, so things are likely to happen slowly. It could be hours before she begins dilating in earnest. Unless --"

They both know any number of _unless_ es, none of them likely to be good.

Xander warns him off continuing with a mere flicker of expression. "If it's gonna be a while, why don't you get some rest, clean up a little. I can stay with Faith. If anything starts happening, I'll come get you."

Much as he hates to give in, Wesley realizes it's a wise suggestion. "Yes, I believe I will. It's been a long night. Faith, will you be all right if I leave you with Xander for a while? I'll be right in the next room."

"Okay," she says faintly, still exhausted after the last wave of pain.

Wesley nods and closes himself in the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt. Contrary to Xander's assumptions, there is a mirror in this room, and Wesley winces at what he sees when he regards his image. Unshaven, bleary, his formal clothes rumpled. Is it that obvious to Xander that he sleeps in his clothes as often as not, and that the generous refill he'd poured for himself wasn't due only to the extreme circumstances of this night? He's just continuing the slide he began when he left Sunnydale in disgrace, his destiny torn away and nothing to replace it. He'd thought for a time working with Angel would fill the void, but that had lasted just a few months. Angel's dusting had sped him along on his downward spiral.

Wesley shakes out his shirt and hangs it on the valet, even though it's hopelessly wrinkled. He's fumbling with his belt when the phone rings. Glynnis, berating him for disappointing her last night and neglecting to make his promised call? Another in her circle of friends, approaching him with an equally suspect case? Few others phone him anymore. He snatches up the receiver on the first ring, hoping not to disturb Faith. "Los Angeles Investigations."

An unknown voice -- male -- asks for him by name. It's the taxi driver who delivered Faith to his doorstep. He says he wants to be certain Faith had found Wesley and that she's safe.

"Yes. And thank you for checking on her. I appreciate your concern. She'll be fine." He quizzes the driver for a few moments on anything he can tell Wesley about how she'd arrived and whether there had been anyone with her, but discovers little, beyond the fact she'd come from the airport. He asks if Faith was able to pay her fare, or if Wesley can cover the cost of the trip.

"No, she handed me some English money. It was enough."

"You've been very kind, and we do appreciate it."

The man unnecessarily describes his motivations for helping Faith, and Wesley can't keep the impatient edge from his voice as he repeats his thanks. He hangs up and tumbles into bed.

It's the sound of the telephone that drags him out of sleep, disoriented, some unknown time later. "Yes," he says curtly, but the word comes out sounding thick, woozy.

"Wesley," says the caller, and Wesley instantly snaps awake. The voice belongs to his father.

* * *

"My apologies," his father says, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic. "Should I call back at some other time when you're more ... awake?"

How does he do this so effortlessly -- cut his son off at the knees with a few words and a subtle tone of voice? "Not at all, Father," Wesley stammers. "I'm perfectly awake."

"Glad to hear it. Your mother says it's become more and more difficult to stay on top of the hours you keep."

"Yes, well. LA. So much important business gets conducted after office hours."

"Seems you've traded one nocturnal profession for another. Well. I didn't call for idle chitchat." No. Not Father. "We've had a breach at the Council. The slayer Faith has escaped our custody."

"That's unfortunate. I appreciate the warning. She did quite a lot of damage the last time she was free."

"Wesley." It has always amazed him how many shadings of disappointment, irritation and contempt two syllables can convey. "Please. Don't waste my time. We know that she has come to you."

His stomach lurches at this revelation. Though he's certain his father isn't lying, he attempts his own. "I don't know what you mean. She hasn't come here."

"Don't insult me with these feeble attempts. We know Faith is there."

Wesley clutches the receiver until his knuckles show white in the mirror. "Since there's no need for pretense on my part, I can ask you this: What in god's name have you done to Faith?"

"No more than the minimum necessary to render her safe."

The arrogance of it astonishes him. "You have completely destroyed her. How you can call it minimal --"

"She is a murderer with a string of victims. Exactly what part of her did you find worthy of saving?"

"The part of her that wanted to be saved. She had come to Angel when you took her. She was ready to change."

"It's obscene to think she could look to a vampire for redemption." His father's voice is icy. "But I see it's a common impulse among the weak-minded."

 _And would anyone come to you for a second chance, for a change of heart?_ he wants to ask. He knows it's pointless, so instead he says, "And what about the other violation you've visited on that girl? What is it you've implanted in her? A demon?"

His laughter crackles over the line, like the sound of brittle, ancient pages being torn from a text and crumpled. "I see your wildly imaginative streak is as strong as ever. I never could stamp it out entirely."

"You're telling me it's a human child she's carrying?"

"If there's anything inhuman about it, it comes from her side."

His casual contempt disgusts Wesley. "Even if that's true, how can the Council do such a thing?"

"My boy, do you really believe Faith is the first slayer to succumb to her power? There is a protocol in these cases. Even renegade slayers have a role to play, once they're brought under control once more. Just as you have a role, if you'll only open your eyes and realize it."

"Or what? The Council will drag me off to imprison and lobotomize me as well?"

"You still do love the drama too, don't you? No. If you're content wallowing in the life you've made for yourself, no one will stop you. But if whoring yourself to rich, vapid women begins to bore you, let us have the girl back, and we'll take you as well."

"Go to hell," Wesley says, and slams down the phone. He hurriedly pulls on some clothes and strides out of the bedroom.

Xander has somehow, on his own, managed to dress Faith in the change of clothes Cordelia sent, and now he stands behind her chair, brushing her hair. Faith is relaxed, lost in the gentle, repetitive sensation. Xander looks up at Wesley's entrance and smirks. "You look rested."

Wesley ignores the dig. "We have to get Faith out of here. The Council knows we have her."

* * *

"How the hell did they find out?"

Faith begins to rouse from her relaxed reverie, and Xander resumes his attentions with the hairbrush.

Wesley says, "I think they may be watching the building, though I'm not certain how closely. They didn't seem to know you're here too. The fact that this is a multi-tenant office building may be affording us a bit of cover."

"So where do you propose we take her? You're still against taking her to the hospital?"

Wesley gives it some thought. "My father mocked the idea that the baby isn't human. But I'm not certain, to tell you the truth, that he can be trusted. He's a Council man through and through."

"Maybe we should call Giles. I know there's no love lost between you two, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and deal."

"Giles and the others have taken themselves off into the desert. It seems they're dealing with a hellgod."

"Oh." The brush pauses mid-stroke.

Wesley recognizes the look of the left-out; he's worn it on enough occasions himself. "It seemed a very hasty departure, with very little notice." He pauses, then goes ahead and asks. "Did you have a falling-out with your friends?"

"No, nothing like that." Xander busies himself with brushing again. "I just didn't feel right hanging out at the university all the time, since I wasn't a student. I got restless, so I decided I'd try out LA. So. Where do we take her?"

"I know of a cabin a few hours from here."

"Oh, come on. You want to bundle Faith in a car for a few hours? She's calm now. She's gotten through some labor pains while you were asleep, and I've managed to get her settled back down each time. I don't think that's gonna happen in a car, especially once they start coming closer together."

"I have another idea." Everything about it seems bad, but he can think of nothing better. Being upbraided by his father has always had this effect on Wesley: the desperate need to do something, with the absolute inability to think clearly. "But I don't see how we can get her out of here without being followed."

"I have an idea about that." Xander lays out his plan, which is clever and audacious. Too bad there's no plan to tack onto the end of it except Wesley's bad one.

As Xander goes to the phone, Wesley gathers up some weapons into a leather duffel, and packs another bag with the crystals and the items Cordelia has sent.

Faith rouses as he bustles around her. "Don't take the rocks away."

"We're all going somewhere, Faith. Don't worry, the rocks are coming with us."

"I don't want to go. I like it here."

"I know, but we can't stay."

Tears well in her eyes and she fidgets uncomfortably in her chair, uttering little _Oh_ s of distress.

"Just stay still, Faith. It'll be all right." A realization hits him with blinding suddenness. Not once through all of this has Faith asked why any of it was happening. Her mind has been reduced to such a pathetic state that the idea of a cause or reason for her suffering is beyond her grasp. Wesley finds himself struggling to suppress tears of his own as Xander returns.

"We're set. They'll be here as soon as they can."

"Watch her," Wesley says brusquely, whirling and striding into the kitchen, where he slams his fist into the wall, choking off the cry of pain it causes.

Xander dashes into the kitchen, a hastily grabbed weapon in his hand. "I heard a -- what the fuck happened?"

Wesley is hunched over his injured hand, riding out the wave of agony. "The wall," he gasps out.

Xander gently takes his elbow and draws the arm toward him. "What? You _hit_ the wall? Ever occur to you to try one that's not, y'know, brick?"

"Sod off," Wesley mutters.

"You wanna tell me _why_?"

"Faith can't ask that question. In all this, she's never asked why. When I realized that I realized how truly broken she is."

Xander is silent for a long moment, then he lets out a breath. "So what you decided to do with your own higher mental powers is to break your hand."

"Yes. Well. I don't think it is broken."

"That's a stroke of luck, anyway. Let me get this cleaned for you. We need to be ready to roll when they get here."

* * *

Wesley leaves Xander to keep Faith calm while he goes upstairs to let Cordelia in when she arrives. Her ruse will be that she's a patient of the dentist next door, but the longer she lingers in the corridor, the quicker that illusion will be dissolved.

At her quick, soft knock, Wesley swiftly opens the door and steps aside for her entry. Cordy's in a posh-looking frock, a short blond wig and oversized shades, her hand still cradling her jaw in her role as the toothache-afflicted. She sets down a shopping bag from a Rodeo Drive boutique and tackles the wig. "Okay. I guess I've gotta see her if I'm gonna be her. Is she out of the clothes she was wearing when she got here?"

"Yes. They've been drying in the bath."

Cordelia stops in the midst of unpinning her hair. "'Drying'?"

"Em. Yes. Her, ah, water broke."

She gives Wesley her patented Cordelia Chase expression of disgust. "The expression 'You owe me'? Doesn't _begin_ to cover this."

"Anything I can do to repay you, Cordelia. Just name it."

"Just this, Wesley: Straighten out your life. Have you even _looked_ at yourself lately?"

"I _was_ about to shower when we learned Faith's presence had been discovered."

"Whatever." She goes back to unfastening her hair. "Where is she?"

Wesley gestures toward the lift, and she retrieves the shopping bag and accompanies him.

She glances over at him as the elevator makes its slow, labored descent. "God, Wes." Without elaborating further, she looks away.

"You should know," Wesley says. "Faith is not the girl you remember. It's hard to see."

"She wasn't that much of a treat the way I remember her. She did try to kill my boyfriend, you might recall."

"I thought he was no longer your boyfriend when that happened."

"Well, he is now."

The lift shudders to a stop and the doors rattle open, revealing Faith crying out in distress as Xander hovers over her.

"It's all right, Faith. You made it through another one. You're gonna be fine. Hey, look. Cordelia's here. You remember Cordelia." He looks up at Wesley. "They're definitely getting closer. I think we should start timing them now."

Cordelia has stopped in her tracks, staring.

"I told you," Wesley says softly.

Snapping out of it, she glares at him. "Yeah, thanks for that, Wes. A little 'I told you so' is always helpful. I'll be back in a minute."

"Gunn?" Xander asks.

"He's waiting in the truck, out front." She bustles into the bathroom, shopping bag in hand.

"Gunn will drive you to this place you were talking about," Xander says. "He'll take care of security and the driving, and you can concentrate on Faith."

"And you'll take Cordelia in my car. You should change into something of mine."

"Wes, have you actually noticed my shoulders? I wear something of yours, and it's definitely the Bruce Banner Goes Berserk look."

The reference is lost on Wesley, but he gets the gist. "Wear glasses at least. I have a spare pair."

Cordelia emerges from the bathroom, huge, wild-haired, in Faith's jeans and shirt, her hand curved over her belly. "Xan, I dug in your closet for something slightly more Wes-like. Go change."

Xander smooths Faith's hair and says. "You're gonna be fine." He hurries off to change.

"Keep your hands down," Wesley tells Cordelia.

"What?"

"She never touches her belly. The Council have been observing her for the past nine months. They'll notice the change."

Lowering her hands, Cordelia comes around to observe Faith while she can.

"Thank you for this, Cordelia."

"I just wish I could put this on my resume. Can you get her to talk?"

Wesley kneels beside Faith, taking her hand in his. "We'll be leaving in a few minutes, Faith. We'll take a ride in a truck with a friend of Xander's."

"Xander too?"

"No, Xander's going with Cordy for a little while. He's going to come and find us a bit later."

"You go with her. Him with me."

A thread of irritation creeps into his voice. "No, it has to be this way. He'll come as soon as he can."

"I've been brave. And good." She begins to cry.

"Yes. Very brave. But you'll have to be that way a while longer." He looks around at Cordelia. "Do you have enough?"

Her hand covering her mouth, Cordy nods.

"Faith." Xander has returned without anyone noticing, in a dark blue shirt beneath a tan trench coat "Wesley's the one who knows how to use the pretty rocks, so he needs to be with you. Cordy and I are going to play a trick on the people who followed you here, so they'll go away. Then I'll come find you."

"Okay. Okay."

"Can you be brave a while longer?"

Though she nods, a sob escapes her.

"Good girl. I know you can do it." Xander draws a breath and then lets it out. "Okay, let's do this."

"Wes keeps his car out back," Cordy says.

"We'll give you a ten minute lead," Wesley says, "then we'll go."

"Hunch your shoulders in more," Cordy tells Xander. "That's better."

Xander puts an arm around Cordelia's shoulders. She grabs a fistful of his coat, head hanging with hair over her face. She starts to wail in the same toneless, ugly noise that Faith's weeping produces. Hearing that sound from two directions at once raises the hairs on the back of Wesley's neck.

" _Go_ ," Wesley says. The sound of Cordy's weeping rises as they make their way out to Wesley's car, and then he's left with the sound of Faith's misery.

Wesley goes to her, drawing a dark blue crystal from the bag where he'd placed it. "Look, I have a rock for you. See how pretty? There's a marking deep inside, like a ribbon. Do you see it? Concentrate on that for me."

Her tears give way to an eerie silence as she falls into a deep trance.

* * *

Wesley throws a few clothes of his own in a bag, then it's time to make their move. Between her bulk and her trance, it's difficult to hustle Faith outside, but at last they reach the sidewalk in front of the building. The driver of a white truck leans across the front seat and shoves the passenger door open, shouting, "Get in!"

"Gunn?"

"That's the name." He reaches a hand toward Faith, helping steady her as Wesley struggles to get her into the pickup.

Wesley has no sooner hoisted himself in behside her than Gunn bullies the truck out into traffic, flicking glances into the rearview mirrors to check for surveillance.

"This is Faith and I'm Wesley. I appreciate your willingness to help."

"It's what we do." He glances at Faith. "I do hope I'm not going to be delivering no baby."

"Believe me, we're on the same page about that."

"So where's this place we're headed?"

"I want to consult with an anagogic demon I've heard about."

"You're consulting demons?"

"He's harmless, by all accounts. He reads people, supposedly their futures."

"'Supposedly.' _I_ can read this girl's future. There's a baby in there, and it's coming out soon."

"Yes, well. We don't precisely know _what_ is in there. That's why I want to see the Host." Wesley points. "There. That's where we're going. You'll have to wait for us outside if you're armed; there are no weapons allowed inside."

Gunn gives him a sour look. "Can I go on record about how much I don't like this?"

Despite his protests, Gunn conceals his weapon in the truck and helps Wesley ease the ungainly Faith out of the truck, then accompanies them down the stairs to Caritas.

"A nightclub?" Gunn asks, incredulous.

Wesley pays the cover charge and asks, "Where is the Host?"

"Same as always," says the bouncer. "If he's not onstage, he's at the bar."

An ungodly noise fills the darkened room, and Wesley realizes it's a kungai demon singing "I Will Always Love You."

"A _karaoke bar_?" Gunn yelps.

A horned demon at the bar flicks a green hand toward the bartender. "Ramon. Another Sea Breeze. Heavier on the vodka."

"You're the Host?" Wesley asks. "We need a reading."

"Put your name on this list, and -- whoa." Turning from the bartender, he takes in Faith. "Should I cue up 'Papa Don't Preach,' or the Paul Anka?"

"I was hoping for something more private," Wesley says. "Faith is a bit fragile."

"Some macho stud should have thought of that around nine months ago."

Wesley scowls. "I'm not the macho stud."

Gunn smirks, then reacts to the Host's glare. "Hey, I just met the girl. I'm driving Miss Daisy, that's all." He gestures at Wesley.

The green demon's expression sours further. "I've never done this. I've never made a rule against this because it never occurred to me I'd be crazy enough to do it, but if I had, it would be hard and fast, and not in the fun way." He drains his drink and rises from his barstool. "Come with me."

He leads them through a door marked "Private," into quarters as garishly decorated as the Host himself. "You settle in right here, sugar plum." He helps her onto an ornate sofa, and Wesley sits beside her. The Host glances at Wesley. "Are you sure she's up for this?"

Wesley waves a hand before Faith's eyes, and she rouses from her trance, looking around, alarmed. "It's all right, Faith. We've come to visit a friend. He'll help us."

She clutches at Wesley. "But he's a demon."

"An empath demon. He can see things, tell us what we need to know."

"Pumpkin, I'm as safe as they come. Why don't you sing a pretty little song for Uncle Lorne? Singing always makes me feel braver."

She ducks her head, muttering into her armpit, "Make him go away."

Wesley slips an arm around her. "Faith, he just wants you to sing, that's all."

"Sing?"

"Yes. Anything you like. What's your favorite song?"

Faith turns her face toward him, her expression horribly blank.

Of course. The word "favorite" implies choice, something she's had stripped away long ago.

"A song you remember from childhood."

"Song?" She shakes her head, slowly at first, but gathering speed. "I want the rocks."

"Soon. Just sing a little something for Lorne." He looks up at the Host. "How much do you need?"

"A few notes should do it. I'm not thinking there are a lot of layers here."

Despite the clear truth of this assessment, Wesley feels a flash of anger. He pushes it down, does his best to summon Xander's manner. "Just a short little song. How about 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'?"

She renews her head shaking. "I don't know, I don't know, _I don't know_."

The Host sucks in a sharp breath. "I don't think she knows what 'sing' means."

A small sound of dismay escapes Wesley.

Lorne kneels beside Faith. "It's a pretty sound. Like this: _Hush, little baby, don't say a word--_ "

Faith buries her face in Wesley's chest. "Oh no. Oh no." At first he believes it's another labor pain, but she claps a hand over her ear.

"What the fuck did they do to that girl?" Gunn mutters.

"I wish I knew," Wesley says. "The people who did it --" he knows who did it -- "should pay."

The demon runs a hand through his hair. "Well, there's something else we can try. If your destiny is tied in with hers, I might be able to get a read on her if you sing."

"Sing?" Wesley repeats, dismayed.

"You can't tell me you don't know what it means either. I've got patrons out there waiting for their futures. Sing, or this audience is done."

"Gunn, please," Wesley says. "Wait out there."

Gunn offers another smirk, but does as he's asked.

"Any time," the Host says.

Wesley rises, stands with his shoulders stiff, his arms hanging at his sides like Faith's. "I can't think of a song."

"Just clear your mind. You'd be amazed what comes."

Cheeks burning, Wesley sings so softly he can barely hear himself. " _How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again, it's always been the same, same old story..._ "

As Faith begins to wail, the Host holds up a hand. "That's plenty." He looks as though he's bitten into something sour.

"Can you see what she's carrying?"

"No, but I can see what you're carrying." He pauses a moment. When he speaks again, his voice has softened. "Look. There's only one way you're gonna step outside of that closet, and that's to make the decision to do it."

Wesley's jaw drops.

"You thought the guy with the soul was gonna break you out, and now he's gone. But it's up to you to look after your own soul. You can't look to anyone else."

"Thank you," Wesley stammers. Suddenly it seems quite imperative that he and Faith leave now. "I'll let you get back to your other clients now. Is there an additional charge?"

"All covered in the cover. Though you can never go wrong buying your Host another Sea Breeze."

Wesley delivers Faith over to Gunn and slips the barman a twenty, despite his disgust.

Lorne puts a hand on his shoulder as he moves to join Gunn and Faith. "Believe me, jumping through hoops for this man is going to bring you nothing but heartache."

Wesley repeats his insincere thanks and hastens away.

"So?" Gunn asks as they help Faith totter up the stairs to the street. "How was the reading?"

"Complete and utter bollocks," Wesley says.

* * *

"He thought we were a couple," Wesley elaborates.

Gunn shrugs. "Well, reasonable people might assume."

"Not Faith and I. You and I."

Gunn's head swivels back toward the club entrance. "What? _Us?_ "

A few steps from the truck, Faith lets out a wail as her knees buckle. They hurry her into the truck. "Oh, get it out, get it out!"

"Where now?" Gunn asks. He pulls into traffic without waiting for an answer.

"I don't know. I'd hoped to find out if it's safe to take her to a hospital for delivery."

"I'm thinking it's a helluva lot safer than my truck."

"We don't know what it is she's carrying. It could be a demon."

"What? When you said that before, I thought you meant you didn't know if it was a boy or girl. This is _not_ happening in my truck."

"We need someplace clean and quiet that isn't connected with us. Someplace where people won't hear Faith screaming during labor." Or afterward, if things go terribly wrong.

"I've got an idea," Gunn says. He pulls out a cellphone and scrolls through his contacts list, driving one-handed. Wesley hears a tinny ringing, and Gunn raises the phone. "Heironeous, this is Ironhand." He looks at Wesley, mouths _Not a word_. "I've got a situation here. Friend of Cordy's needs a place to deliver a baby, which might or might not be demonic. We need somewhere clean, secluded and defendable.... Yeah, thought you would.... Got it. Listen, if Xander checks in with you, let him know where we went. Thanks." Gunn flips his phone shut.

"Who on earth was that?"

"David Nabbit. Big Dungeons & Dragons freak with more money than anyone else in the world, he's gonna have the kind of space we need."

"'Heironeous, this is Ironhand'?"

"Do. Not. Start."

Faith cries out again, arching her back as she howls through the labor pang. "Get it out!"

"Just hold on, Faith. We'll be somewhere comfortable soon, and it'll come out. The pains are getting closer, that means it's almost out."

It takes nearly an hour to reach the appointed place, and in the meantime, it's been not just stocked, but catered. A selection of sandwiches, snacks and fruit have been laid out on a long table against a wall. There's a round table in the outer room, too, where Nabbit no doubt entertains his gaming friends. There are guest rooms off the hall, simply appointed but furnished with wall-mounted flat-panel televisions, video game handsets and state-of-the-art computers.

"This is remarkable," Wesley says.

Gunn shrugs. "Got this stuff at home, too. David said put her in his room. It's the biggest."

Like the others, it features expensively framed fantasy art, predominantly busty warrior-princesses and scantily clad goddesses. They get Faith settled on the large bed -- Wesley hadn't known there were beds larger than a king, but this one is -- just as another pain tears through her.

"So how long is this gonna take?" Gunn asks.

Wesley sits on the side of the bed, gazing at the floor. "A great deal longer, I'm afraid."

* * *

After three hours, Wesley is sitting on the floor by her bed, still staring at the floor. Faith's wails are coming closer together, but she thrashes and slaps at him when he attempts to touch her. Xander hasn't appeared yet, which is beginning to worry Wesley. Gunn has been reading everything he can find online about stages of labor, relating it all to Wesley.

"You think we should be telling her to push? Every tv show I've ever seen with a baby, they tell her to push."

"I don't believe she'd understand how," Wesley says dully. "She has no sense of connection to this child at all. Which might actually be fortunate."

"Yeah, fortunate. I can see how fortunate she is."

"I wish you could have seen what she was like before."

"Cordy says she was a homicidal maniac."

"She was a warrior. Powerful and fierce and more brave than it was wise to be. She had flaws and they overtook her, spun her out of control. I failed her very badly."

" _You_ failed _her_?"

Wesley looks up at Gunn. "It was my job to mentor her. I had no idea how to do that for someone who lived by a different code than I did. I had been raised to unquestioning obedience. Faith mostly raised herself. She was an irrepressible young woman, and I didn't know how to handle her."

"Someone sure as hell repressed her."

Faith writhes and howls and slaps ineffectually at the mound of her belly. "No, stop, don't!"

Wesley scrambles up and catches her hands in his. "Faith, tell me what's happening."

"It's pushing and it hurts."

"The baby's about to be born, Faith. It'll be out soon, and you'll feel much better. I need to take off your trousers so it has room to come out. Can I do that?"

Her only answer is a howl, but he sets about slipping off her elastic-waist cotton pants, and she doesn't fight him.

"Find me some sheets and towels," Wesley says to Gunn, "and I suppose now is as good a time as any to boil some water."

"You think there's actually a big pan for that here, or does David just cater in the boiling water?"

Wesley twitches a wry smile. "Good point. Do your best."

"You think maybe she needs to look at those R-O-C-K-S you were telling me about? Calm her down a little?"

"I'm afraid at this stage it could slow down her labor, and there are enough potential complications we're facing without that."

Gunn nods. "Be right back."

Wesley adjusts the sheet over Faith's lower body. "You're being a very brave girl, Faith."

"I don't want to be brave. I want it to go away."

"It will be out soon, I promise."

Gunn returns with an armload of linens, and Wesley coaxes Faith to bend her knees so he can tent a fresh sheet over them to obscure her view without blocking his. He opens the bag of weapons, sets several close at hand.

"Can I see the rocks?"

"Not just now. I need you to be able to concentrate."

Another wail cuts off her objection. Wesley leaves Gunn to watch her for a moment so he can scrub his hands and arms, and when he returns Gunn goes to do the same.

"Something's down there!" She thrashes, hoists herself on her elbows.

"Keep still, Faith. What you're feeling is natural. It's the baby. It's coming out."

Wesley's hands almost twitch with the desire to close around a weapon. Something begins to emerge, dark and wet, and Wesley feels as though a hand is gripping his throat. "Oh god," he murmurs as the head and shoulders emerge. Relief rolls through him. "It's human."

* * *

"You're doing beautifully, Faith," Wesley tells her. "You're almost done."

Her cries take on a different tone, thin and despairing. If she had been a baby herself, he'd suspect she did not have long to live.

"You've been so brave," he says. It disgusts him to hear these words come so readily yet another time, words that had clearly been used to manipulate her for this past year. "Here are the shoulders, it won't be long now."

Another spasm and the child is free.

"It's a boy," he says, and for a moment a wave of emotion sweeps over him, despite his horror at the circumstances of this birth.

"How about that," Gunn says softly.

Wesley looks up and sees he is similarly affected by what has happened.

"Now what?"

"Faith must expel the placenta, then we get them both cleaned up."

"Is it out, is it out?"

"Yes, Faith." Wesley clears the baby's airway and the child begins to cry.

Agitated, she begins to thrash. "No, make it stop."

"The crying? That's completely natural, Faith. It means he's healthy."

"Make it stop!" The last word is lost in a shriek as another pain grips her, and after a long, horrifying screech, the placenta is expelled.

"We need to clamp the cord, then cut it," Wesley tells Gunn.

"I'll look in the kitchen. We can McGuyver something."

When it's done, Wesley wraps the baby in one of the towels, takes a fresh one, and rises. "I'll get him cleaned up. Watch for any excessive bleeding."

He quickly moves to the master bath and fills the basin with tepid water, cooing softly to the baby as he wipes away the streaks of blood. "That's better now, isn't it?"

He'd hoped things would be better with Faith as well, but there's no evidence of that from the other room. Her crying grows louder, even as the boy's begins to subside.

He rewraps the child and opens the bathroom door. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing as far as I can see."

"Can you take him?" He gives the baby to Gunn, who at once begins to rock him gently.

"You're a natural," Wesley says, which earns him a glare. He kneels by Faith. "You'll be fine, Faith. It's all done."

Her agitation only seems to grow.

"Want to see him?" Gunn asks.

"No no no no no," Faith shrieks. "Get it away!"

"Whoa, it's okay," Gunn says. "It's okay. C'mon, let's take a little walk."

"Faith, it's all right, it's all right. Now that the baby's born, you can look at the rocks, would you like that?"

She nods, her breath hitching with sobs. Wesley rummages in the bag for the chunk of amethyst. Avidly she reaches for it, then recoils. "No, oh no no no." She turns her face away.

"Faith, what's wrong? It's the purple rock, I know you like that one. Try it again."

She does as he asks, but this time her response is another shriek.

"Let's try another," Wesley says hastily. He selects the blue stone. Perhaps putting her back into a trance state will let her body forget its trauma as he cleans up evidence of the birth, and when he brings her out of it, she'll be on fresh sheets, wearing clean clothes. "Remember this one? See the flaw inside, like a ribbon twisting on itself?"

The effect this time is the opposite from before. She screams and convulses, even after Wesley shoves the crystal back into the bag and pushes it under the bed. He presses her shoulders to the mattress, murmuring meaningless reassurances, but she flashes out and strikes him on the faces. His glasses fly off, skittering across the floor.

Gunn returns, babe in his arms. "What's going on?"

"I don't know. I tried to calm her with the crystals, but they've only made her worse."

Gunn's cell phone rings, the piercing sound making Faith's back arch as she screeches.

"Take him." He hands the baby off to Wesley, then flips open the phone. "Xander. Any trouble?" He listens, but the tension in his body doesn't rise, so the report must be good.

Wesley moves away from the bed, whether to shelter the baby from Faith or the other way around, he's not sure.

"That's Faith," Gunn says. "Baby's out, it's human, they're both fine, as far as we can tell, but she's flipped out." He presses his fingers against his free ear. "Have you talked to Nabbit? Yeah, I thought he might have a place we could go, we're at his little gaming den, which is about like what you'd expect." He rattles off directions. "Should be about forty-five minutes from where you are."

"Let me speak to him," Wesley says. He exchanges the baby for the phone and leaves the bedroom, looking for the farthest point from Faith's screams. "I was getting quite worried."

"Yeah, sorry. The Council types were all over my ass like a nasty rash. It took a while to shake them. What's happening with Faith?"

"It seems as though she's had a complete psychotic break."

"What about the crystals?"

"They make her much worse. Just get here. I'll try to have a plan by the time you arrive." He breaks the connection and stands in the bungalow's kitchen, listening to the wails and shrieks coming from the master bedroom. He finds it hard to breathe, as if a metal band is slowly squeezing his chest.

Breaking out of his paralysis, he dials a number from memory. His father answers immediately, as if he's been awaiting the call. It's hard to know where to begin.

Wesley steps out into the garden.

* * *

"Whose child is this?"

"That's none of your affair, Wesley. Tell us where he is, and we'll retrieve him."

"I will not turn this child over to the Council."

"And what will you do with him? Leave him with Faith? This child isn't yours. He belongs with his father."

"Who is the father? Tell me, or I'll make certain you never find him."

"Don't think you can give me an ultimatum, boy."

"I can do as I fucking please," he says, just for the pleasure of hearing the small sound of disgust it produces from his father. "Faith has had a complete break. The crystals don't work. Tell me what to do for her."

"Of course the crystals don't work. They were carefully calibrated to her. Now that she's undergone childbirth, the hormones flooding her system have completely thrown off the balance that's required. If you've mucked about trying to treat her with the crystals, you've caused irreparable damage."

This can't be true. He can't have failed her again, taken a broken psyche and obliterated it entirely. "There must be something --"

"You can let us have her. We have facilities, drugs that can keep her as comfortable as she can be. She'll be better off with us than in a so-called hospital in the States."

"And the baby--"

"He'll be taken to his father. Raised to his destiny as a watcher."

"You're breeding slayers and watchers?"

"On occasion. When a Council man finds himself in a barren marriage. When there's a rogue slayer who can be reclaimed."

 _Reclaimed._ The arrogance of the Council is staggering.

"I believe you know the child's father. Cunningham. Wasn't he in your class at the academy?"

Not just in Wesley's class. He had been one of the few friends Wesley had had during those years.

"You wouldn't deprive him of his son, would you?"

Wesley closes his eyes. "This is unspeakably barbaric," he says weakly.

"Well." The word rumbles across the line in the clearing of his father's throat. "Without such barbarism, you wouldn't exist."

The words hit him like the first disorienting sensation of an earthquake, before the mind registers what is happening.

"I never meant to tell you, but you force my hand. Your mother was unable to bear children. We availed ourselves of Council tradition in order to have you."

Wesley sways, eyes still closed, tuned into the shrieks coming from a distance. If he sees nothing but horror in what has been done to Faith, then his own birth --

"You see," his father says, "a great deal of effort and hope were put into your birth. The Council's as well as mine. Now that you know exactly how much, we'd like to bring you back into the fold." Perhaps it's a trick of the long distance line, but his voice sounds warmer than Wesley can ever remember.

"Into ... the Council wishes to have me back?"

"We've found a girl who's much more suitable for you. She's next in line to be called as slayer. We can ensure you a period of training and adjustment to one another before she's tested in battle."

"But the Council sacked me."

"An over-reaction to embarrassment. Cooler heads prevailed, and it's become clear that you were given an impossible challenge in a slayer who was already damaged." There is a pause. "It would mean a great deal to me, son, if you would come back to us."

 _Son._ Wesley falls to his knees. sinking into damp grass.

"Just give us Faith and the boy, and take your rightful place as the next slayer's watcher."

"Do I have your word that no one will be hurt when they come for us?"

Before he hears the answer, he knows what his own will be.

* * *

Epilogue:

His recurring dreams are most often about Cordelia, rarely Faith. Sometimes Wesley explains himself to her. How his decision was in part to stop the freefall that she herself had condemned. He tells her what he will never be able to say in his waking hours, to her or anyone. That the only way he can face who he is and how he came to be is to believe wholeheartedly in the worldview that created him.

Her response never changes. "You drank the Kool-Aid, Wes." She tells him she wants nothing to do with him.

In other dreams, it's as if the break never happened. He tells her about his slayer, Amy Sherpa, daughter of an immigrant family in Jackson Heights, Queens. He tells Cordelia that at last he feels he's at home in his calling, that Amy, for all her quirks and strength of will, is the slayer he was meant for.

Cordy smiles and tells Wesley she's happy for him.

On bad nights, it's Cordelia instead of Faith who is the blank-eyed incubator of a future watcher -- of Wesley's child. He touches her belly and murmurs to the son growing inside her because she will not.

Some nights he dreams of the birth -- sometimes it's a demon that emerges as he waits for a son. Sometimes it's his child, but he is slaughtered by his maddened mother before Wesley can intervene.

After a time, however, the dreams diminish, along with his doubts. When Amy wakes one day a slayer instead of a potential, he hardly stops to consider the full meaning of her transformation. Only when his father telephones to confirm what he already knows does he think about Faith. "Did she suffer?" he asks. Stupid question. Her whole brief life, it seems, was suffering. At least it's at an end now.

"We made certain she was comfortable. But that's the past. You have your new slayer to think about."

"Yes." Still, he permits himself a phone call to Cunningham, to ask after the baby.  
He takes some comfort in the obvious joy of his old friend.

It's well over a year before Amy's eighteenth birthday, and as the time draws nearer he views the prospect of her coming test with confidence, sure of her quick thinking and abilities. This is the slayer he should have had all along. If Amy had been chosen when Kendra died, Faith would be alive now, an unremarkable girl hellbent for some kind of trouble, perhaps a pregnancy of a more conventional type. He pictures Faith, intellect intact but also her rage and instability, shaking her crying child with a curse, possibly striking it. Better this way, a wanted child raised to fulfill a worthy purpose.

When it's time for the Cruciamentum, Wesley's father accompanies Quentin Travers to New York for the preparations. He doesn't exactly greet Wesley with warmth, but he does extend his sympathies to Wesley for being forced by his duties to live in Queens, which Wesley takes as a sign of affection.

"I rather like it here," Wesley admits. He has an apartment in Woodside, a mere twenty-minute walk from Amy's home in Jackson Heights, a path that takes him past a United Nations of residents and storefronts. Manhattan is only a half-hour subway ride away, for cultural events and slaying excursions.

His father grunts dismissively, but Wesley doesn't feel discouraged. To know that he has his trust and approval on important matters is enough.

Travers and his father escort him through the abandoned warehouse that's been converted to Amy's testing ground. It's an obstacle course of hazards, with no way out except by her wits and her will. They are all she'll need. Amy comes from strong stock, mountain guides in the Himalayas, and her parents drive her hard to be smart and studious and resourceful.

"Would you like to meet her opponent?" Travers asks.

"Isn't it bound and locked up?"

"Yes, but it's time for the last dose of medication before the Cruciamentum."

"All right, then." He follows Travers and his father to a tall packing crate guarded by a pair of Council men. Feral snarls sound from inside.

Travers nods to one of the men, and he hurries to unclasp the large lock on an iron band encircling the crate. The vampire inside has its head lowered, matted dark hair hiding its face and the arms crossed inside the straitjacket. The Council man aims a flashlight at its face, and it whips its head from side to side.

"Time for your meds, princess." The Council man pokes at her with a long-handled spoon. "Quiet down or you won't get your happy pill, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"

The vampire raises its head, and the shock of recognition is a physical blow to Wesley. "Faith."

She hisses, baring her fangs. Her eyes are less dulled than they were the last time he'd seen her, glittering with feral canniness. "Wes," she mimics.

Wesley can't tear his eyes from her. "What -- how did this happen?" He'd thought she was hospitalized in a secure Council facility.

"She had one more contribution to make for the Council," his father says.

"This is how Amy came to be the slayer? Faith was killed and then turned?"

"It's against Council policy to waste our resources," Travers says. "This is one last service she can perform to balance out the damage she caused."

"My god," he murmurs. He watches her struggle against her bonds. "Are you certain she's suitable for this? Her mind --"

"Some of the restraints we placed on her have been eased," Travers says. "However, some of them are irreversible. She's quite mad, but she's intelligent enough to provide an adequate challenge for your slayer."

Faith snarls. "Your slayer. I'll kill her slow, then I'll make you eat her fuckin' heart."

"Shut up and take your pill," says her keeper. He extends her medication on the long-handled spoon, and Faith greedily swallows it.

Wesley feels the weight of his father's gaze on him, gauging his reaction, evaluating his mettle.

"Second thoughts?"

"Not at all," Wesley says. "I have complete confidence in Amy's abilities."

Father claps him on the shoulder, guiding him toward the building's sole exit. "Good. Well then, we'll start tomorrow. Why don't you come back to our hotel for a drink? A toast to your slayer."

This is all he'd ever hoped for, back in his younger days.

"I'd like that very much, Father." He settles himself next to his father in the Council's black sedan. As it glides away from the warehouse, he does not look back.


End file.
